Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company
Semiconductor ManufacturingFounded 1987- Updated July 2025
Reviewed by Swet Parvadiya
Last reviewed: July 2025
CorpDigest
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company
Company History
Founded 1987 in Hsinchu, Taiwan
Last reviewed: 2025-07-15 · By Swet Parvadiya
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company is a Semiconductor Manufacturing company with $90B in 2024 revenue and 73K employees worldwide. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company operates at the intersection of the most advanced materials science, precision engineering, and large-scale manufacturing that human civilization has ever produced. Its fabs in Hsinchu, Tainan, and Taichung house machinery so precise that it can pattern features smaller than the wavelength of visible light onto silicon wafers the diameter of a dinner plate, at a yield rate exceeding 90 percent, at a throughput of tens of thousands of wafers per month. The company processes materials including silicon, germanium, hafnium oxide, cobalt, tungsten, and dozens of engineered compounds with tolerances measured in angstroms — one ten-billionth of a meter. From a business perspective, TSMC is simultaneously a capital-intensive manufacturer, a technology development organization, and a critical infrastructure provider for the global technology industry. Its customers include virtually every significant designer of advanced semiconductors, from trillion-dollar companies like Apple and NVIDIA to specialized startups designing custom AI chips for specific applications. The company's strategic importance has elevated semiconductor manufacturing policy to the highest levels of government in the United States, Japan, the European Union, and Taiwan itself. With approximately 73,000 employees, a 2024 revenue base approaching $90 billion, and capital expenditure commitments that will exceed $150 billion over the next five years, TSMC is executing the most ambitious industrial capacity expansion program of the current era. Its success or failure in replicating its Taiwan manufacturing culture on three continents while maintaining technology leadership will determine not just the company's financial trajectory but the structure of the global technology supply chain for a generation.
Morris Chang is universally credited as the inventor of the pure-play semiconductor foundry business model and one of the most consequential figures in the history of the technology industry. After founding TSMC in 1987 at age 55 — an age at which most executives are contemplating retirement — he built the company from a modest government-backed startup into the most important manufacturing company on Earth. Chang served as CEO from 1987 to 2005, when he handed leadership to Rick Tsai. He returned as co-CEO in 2009 following the global financial crisis and resumed full leadership, steering TSMC through its most significant technology transitions including the development of its 20nm and 16nm FinFET processes. Chang retired as Chairman in June 2018, handing the role to Mark Liu and full operational control to current CEO C.C. Wei. Now in his nineties, Chang remains an occasional public voice on semiconductor policy and Taiwan's strategic importance to the global technology industry.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company is incorporated in February 1987 with $220 million in initial capital from Taiwan's government, Philips Electronics, and private investors. Morris Chang establishes the company in Hsinchu, Taiwan, and begins construction of Fab 1.
TSMC completes its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange as an American Depositary Receipt (ADR) under ticker TSM, simultaneously listing on the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The listings give TSMC access to global capital markets and international investor visibility.
TSMC secures foundry agreements with NVIDIA, founded in 1993, for its first discrete graphics products. The relationship establishes TSMC's position as the preferred manufacturer for U.S. Fabless graphics chip companies and marks a turning point in the validation of the foundry model.
Riding the dot-com boom and the explosion of fabless semiconductor companies, TSMC's annual revenue exceeds $5 billion for the first time. The company begins construction of multiple 200mm and 300mm wafer fabs in Taiwan to meet surging demand.
TSMC introduces its 28-nanometer process node, a technology generation that proves remarkably long-lived due to its balance of performance, power efficiency, and cost. The 28nm node becomes the most widely deployed advanced logic process in history and anchors TSMC's revenue for nearly a decade.
TSMC introduces its 16-nanometer FinFET process, the first 3D transistor architecture deployed in high volume at an external foundry. Apple's A9 chip for the iPhone 6s is among the first major products manufactured at this node, cementing the Apple-TSMC relationship.
Morris Chang steps down as Chairman at age 87 after more than 30 years leading TSMC. Mark Liu assumes the Chairman role and C.C. Wei becomes CEO. The transition is smooth, reflecting years of succession planning and the institutional strength Chang built.
TSMC begins high-volume production at its 5-nanometer node, manufacturing Apple's A14 Bionic chip for the iPhone 12. Simultaneously, the company announces plans to build a $12 billion advanced semiconductor fab in Phoenix, Arizona, a direct response to U.S. Government concerns about supply chain concentration.
TSMC enters volume production at its 3-nanometer node, the first foundry to do so globally, initially for Apple's A17 Pro chip. The 3nm process represents a fundamental transistor architecture change and delivers approximately 15 percent performance improvement and 35 percent power reduction versus 5nm.
TSMC reports full-year 2024 revenue of approximately $90 billion, a 33 percent increase driven by AI chip demand. NVIDIA's H100 and H200 GPU families, manufactured at TSMC's 4nm node, account for a major portion of the acceleration. Arizona Fab 1 begins limited production at 4nm.
TSMC's first Japanese fab in Kumamoto begins production, manufacturing chips on 28nm to 12nm processes for automotive and consumer electronics customers. The facility, a joint venture with Sony Semiconductor Solutions and Denso, received approximately $3.5 billion in Japanese government subsidies.
TSMC begins volume manufacturing at its N2 (2-nanometer) process node, the most advanced chip manufacturing process in the world. Early customers include Apple for its A19 processor family and several major AI chip designers. The node uses a Gate-All-Around transistor architecture for the first time in TSMC's process roadmap.
TSMC established WaferTech in Camas, Washington state as the first TSMC-controlled semiconductor manufacturing facility in the United States. The facility was designed to serve U.S. Customers requiring domestic manufacturing for defense and government applications. The investment also gave TSMC operational experience in U.S. Manufacturing environments, labor markets, and regulatory frameworks decades before the Arizona expansion program.
TSMC acquired a significant stake in Global Unichip Corporation, a fabless ASIC design company, to strengthen its design service capabilities and offer customers integrated design-and-manufacture solutions for complex application-specific integrated circuits. The investment reflected TSMC's recognition that some customers, particularly in networking and communications, needed more than manufacturing services — they needed design support to translate their system concepts into manufacturable chip designs.
TSMC built a controlling interest in Xintec, a wafer-level packaging and testing company that provided specialized backend semiconductor manufacturing services. The investment was part of TSMC's strategy to offer a more complete suite of semiconductor manufacturing services, extending its value chain beyond wafer fabrication into packaging and testing. Xintec's wafer-level chip scale packaging technology was increasingly important for compact electronic devices including mobile phones.